"The nation's top patent court has stopped a lower court from throwing out four patents on financial software, used to sue a bank dealing in foreign currency exchanges. The controversial opinion, countered by a blistering dissent by one member of the three-judge panel, shows that the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is in disarray about just what is patentable. An 'abstract idea' can't win a patent, but the judges on the court are in disagreement about just what that is." It seems that US judges are getting more and more vocal about the US Patent Mess. Interesting.

So after an R&D lab spends $100 million developing and testing a new drug anyone is free to infringe their patents because the lab only licenses the patents and doesn't actually make a product?

Thats slightly different as exact measures are used in the product and patent to create the drug or the way its process to be made into a drug form.

The idea that patents can be abstract comes from the 'idea' of maybe if it looked or worked like this, but i haven't even made it myself yet. Or like apple has sone a few times 'but but it looks something like our iphone, cus it has a screen round edges and a button in the middle. yeah, no measurements or anything but a general 'i could look like this' abstract.